At $18.2 Billion, Uber Worth More Than Hertz, United Continental

Uber began shuttling riders around in black cars in San Francisco four years ago. Today, at $18.2 billion, the car service app is worth more than decades-old legacy companies that shuttle people across the globe.

Uber’s meteoric rise has led to a recent round of valuation-guessing, which started at $12 billion and edged up to Friday, when the Wall Street Journalreported the company said it’s raising $1.2 billion — more than most startups are ever worth — at an $18.2 billion valuation.

That valuation likely makes CEO and co-founder Travis Kalanick a billionaire. It also means Uber, which raised $360 million in August at a $3.8 billion valuation, has almost quintupled its valuation in the past year. Uber is second, behind Facebook, in a list of most valuable venture-backed companies. Facebook raised a round in 2011 that valued it at $50 billion.

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